by Alison Baird
After the council had concluded Ailia remained seated on her throne, staring listlessly into the gathering dusk of the unlit chamber. Ana went to her and laid a hand on her arm. “Ailia, my dear . . .”
Ailia looked at the old woman, searching her face. “Ana—is it true, what Marima says? About me and Mandrake?”
“It is in the prophecy,” Ana told her. “The Valei, the Children of Darkness—Valdur’s followers—will want Mandrake to become their ruler, and it is said that the Tryna Lia and the avatar of Valdur must confront one another.” She hesitated.
“And one of us will be killed by the other,” Ailia whispered.
“Not you, Highness, I am sure,” said Marima.
“I can’t do it, Ana!” said Ailia. “I’ll never be able to kill him. Never!”
“Of course you cannot perform the deed now, Highness,” soothed Master Wu, approaching her. “Your Nemerei powers have not yet been developed and trained. But you proved stronger than he when you confronted him at the gates of the palace. You surely have the strength to vanquish him.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ailia. “It’s not that I’m afraid to face him—I mean, I am afraid, but it isn’t only that.” Tears came to her eyes. “I’ve never killed anything, not so much as an animal. I couldn’t take a human life—not even his!”
“Even if the fate of worlds hung in the balance?” asked Marima.
Ailia turned away. “I tell you it’s no use—I simply can’t do it!”
There was a brief pause, then Ana spoke again. “Ailia, my dear, listen to me. Mandrake is much too intelligent to serve anyone without question: so the dark Power seeks to possess him slowly, by degrees, taking him unawares. The longer this seduction continues, the less will Mandrake be Mandrake: in the end, he will lose what is left of his humanity and become what Valdur became—a mirror image of his Master. You are young yet, Ailia, and you still believe that death is the most terrible fate of all. But I say there are worse fates, that losing your life is better by far than losing your soul. Can you see now, my dear, how it is that I can care for Mandrake, and yet wish for his death? To see him die while he is still himself, and able to rest in peace, rather than watch him become a tool of the dark Power? It is my fault that he now lives, and pre-sents a threat to you. For your sake I wish I had dealt with him differently when I first found him.”
“Oh, no, Ana,” said Ailia, horrified. “You couldn’t have killed a child. I don’t blame you at all: I would have done the same.”
Ana placed her withered old hand under the girl’s smooth chin. “You have a tender heart and a generous nature. May the Great Powers grant that these things prove your salvation, and not your undoing. A seeming cruelty can be kindness, Ailia, and apparent kindness great cruelty. Mandrake’s life has not been a blessing to him, nor to the many others whom he has harmed. For that I must take the blame. When it comes your turn to face him, I hope you will neither suffer for my error, nor repeat it to your cost.”
Ailia could not answer. There was, she knew, nothing more to be said, and misery enfolded her along with the gathering dark.
THAT EVENING WAS THE FESTIVAL of the Elyra, the High Gods, and the city rang with music and laughter. Tiny lamps and candleholders hung on houses, bridges, garden walls, and even trees to symbolize the stars of Heaven. Eldimia on this night mirrored the celestial realm above.
The thousands of citizens participating in the revels knew nothing of Khalazar’s appearance three nights ago. The councillors had taken pains that no one else should learn of it, lest a panic ensue: all the witnesses in the banquet hall had been sworn to silence. Damion gazed pensively on the festive scenes in the streets: at the beaming faces of the people around him, people who had never known war or want, or the deep divisions of Mera’s faiths and nations with all their attendant strife. To the Elei, God had not one face but many. The Divine was infinite and ineffable, yet also reflected in all the things of which it was the source: rock and tree, beast and bird, human and spirit. There were thousands of temples and shrines in Eldimia, and sacred trees and springs and hills. The error of idolatry lay in identifying the Divine with one image to the exclusion of all others, and worshiping that image rather than that which it strove imperfectly to represent. The multiplicity of god-images in Arainian culture was intended to prevent idolatry, not promote it. They were hues split from a single light, facets of one many-sided jewel. In this world Damion had found his faith again. The God of his early beliefs had not diminished, but rather grown in power and majesty.
Damion was returning from a service honoring the archangel Athariel, which had been held in the cloister belonging to the Paladins. The old knightly order survived here in Arainia. At first it had been only a small group of men—and women—dedicated to good works, but since Ailia’s coming their ranks had swelled with eager youths, their heads full of visions of valor. The youths liked to dress in armor and joust in real tournaments, and they revered Damion and Jomar because they had come from Mera and seen real combat. The Grand Master had engaged Jomar as a sword-trainer, and Damion had agreed to be their chaplain. He had officiated at tonight’s service, and still wore the priestly robe and blue tunicle with its six-pointed silver star. The Paladin order had died out in Mera, though a few cherished dreams of restoring it: Damion’s own father Arthon had been one of these, and he often thought of him when he visited the Paladins’ cloister. But it was less for the idealist he longed than for the man himself. What sort of a man had Arthon been?
“I expect I was illegitimate, like most of the orphans at the monastery,” he had commented to Ana once with a rueful smile.
Ana had looked amused. “Oh, I doubt that. Your mother would not concern herself with such niceties, dwelling free and wild in the mountains, but your father was very proper. Arthon would have insisted on a binding ceremony of some kind.”
He gazed at the city as he passed through its broad, fair avenues. It looked both foreign and familiar, its architecture a blend of Merei and Elei styles: squat arches and thick pillars that spoke of a world of heavier gravity, contrasting with more typically Arainian spires and high-peaked roofs. Winged figures topped many of the latter: they might have been the angels and winged victories so common in Meran cities, but were more likely representations of the sorcerous Old Ones. It was as though he had been given a glimpse of an alternative Meran history, in which the Elei culture had never waned and died but instead had passed on its love of peace and beauty to all the other peoples of the world. He thought of the Elei ruins in Trynisia and Maurainia, broken and forlorn, and as he walked on to the palace he wondered with some bitterness if this civilization too was doomed.
Ailia in the meantime had retreated to the gardens of Halmirion. Usually she preferred the wilder portion of the grounds, where the trees grew in thick groves and little streams meandered where they would, and the animals of the royal menagerie roamed free. Her mother had also loved this part of the gardens; the animals, it was said, had come running to her and crowded around her whenever she walked there. Not for today the wilder groves of the park, however; Ailia needed tranquility. She had chosen a pleasance for its restful bowers, still reflecting pools and velvet-smooth lawns, its stately cypress avenues and sculpted grottoes. She walked, alone but for the faerie-hound Jomar had given her, and Bezni trotting at her heels. When she grew weary she seated herself on the rim of a small fountain, where an arc of water fell with a glittering sound from the mouth of a bronze lion’s head, into the basin beneath. It was all so beautiful and so peaceful, she thought as she stroked the mimic dog’s shaggy fur. It was hard to believe that an invading force from Mera could put an end to all this—destroy this harmony and serenity for all time. A breath of fresh, fragrant air wafted into her face. It was spring, and the royal gardens were a mass of billowing blossom—magnolia, gardenia, jasmine. The blossoms swung like censers on the warm breeze, filling the twilight beneath the trees with their sweet blended scents. Evergreen shrubs were clipped into
whimsical shapes: coiled serpents, and birds, and cubes and spheres and pyramids. Wind harps concealed in the boughs of trees made strange, aeolian melodies, while from farther off came the aqueous strains of countless fountains, and water clocks whose wheels ground out the minutes like meal.
As night deepened the pleasance was lit by Arainia’s living pyrotechnics: the little fireflylike pyrallises, which swirled in golden swarms as though sparks from a forge had come to life, and the night-flying ercines whose plumage glimmered with a ghostly pale-green radiance. The light of the stars and the Arch of Heaven grew stronger, silvering the trees. Finally Miria rose in her sapphirine splendor. There was an enchantment in her light, reflected from the hidden sun. Miria transmuted it with her blue allure, and poured it down to transform Arainia in turn.
“Ah—there you are.” She turned, to see Damion standing on the path not far away.
He approached and sat down beside her. She made a pretty picture, he thought: the princess of a peaceable kingdom. How beautiful she looked, too: she had changed her regal garb for a pale-green gown all embroidered with flowers. Her hair was still up in its braided crown, but she had twined some blossoms into the braids. He found himself thinking of Ailia now as he had seen her at the ball, gliding into the room in her violet gown, her hair piled high behind her glinting tiara. He had found himself gaping at her foolishly, and looked away in sudden confusion. But she had been different, that night—coolly regal, graceful, even beautiful. He had always thought of her, affectionately, as the little sister he had never had; and now she was a woman—not only a woman, but a princess. He had been filled with something like awe for her on that night, something that made him hesitate to approach her or engage her in conversation. He smiled ruefully, recalling that callow reaction. What in the worlds must she have thought of him?
She gave him one of her quick, sweet smiles, and he smiled back, his heart lifting: this was the Ailia he knew, not the icy goddess of the ballroom or the monarch on her throne. “Hullo, Damion! Those robes look well on you. Blue is your color,” she added teasingly.
“How are you, Ailia?” Damion probed gently. “You looked a little pale at the Council meeting. I was wondering if you were feeling unwell.”
Her great, gray-purple eyes had shadows under them, making them seem larger than ever. “Oh, Damion—I think I’m going mad.” But her tone was quite cheerful as she said this. “An embassy from Inner Eldimia has asked me to make it rain in their territory: they have had a drought for several weeks now. I said couldn’t do that, and they said the goddess will perform the miracle—they merely ask me to intercede on their behalf. If it doesn’t rain I can say that the goddess has chosen not to grant their petition. And this business with Khalazar—even if we told the people about it they wouldn’t be worried. They trust me, they believe I’m going to make everything all right for them. I wish I could believe that too. And I wish I could do something to earn this love they have for me,” she added wistfully.
“Love isn’t earned, Ailia. Love is a gift.”
She looked quickly up at him and then glanced away again. He gazed at her fondly. Many young girls would have had their heads completely turned by this sort of attention and adulation: but not Ailia.
“I was just admiring the stars. Mera is up tonight: do you see her?” she said.
They both looked up at the great silver-blue star, just rising beyond the trees: the star that was the world of Mera, bearing its freight of humanity through the vast circle of another turbulent year.
“It’s hard to believe everything we used to know is there, inside that little point of light,” commented Ailia.
“I was just thinking how peaceful it looks. You’d not think wars had ever been waged there.”
Ailia got up, and the two of them walked on together through the grounds. The moonlight was so bright that it seemed less a light than an element through which the two of them moved, palpable as water. Somewhere in the gardens a peacock uttered its shrill hay-ow, hay-ow. And then a soft, far-off voice was raised in song: delicate rippling strains that rose and fell, rose and fell, from some shadowy place high in the branches of a tree.
“What is that?” asked Damion. “I’ve heard it so often, but I’ve no idea what sort of bird it is.”
“It’s one of the Arainian birds,” replied Ailia. “They call it an attagen.”
“It makes a nightingale sound like a crow. Can they be kept as pets?”
“No—people have tried, but it’s no use. An attagen won’t sing if it’s caged.” She sighed as she spoke, to his puzzlement: she had sounded to him almost mournful, as though the image of the captive bird had awakened other, less pleasant thoughts.
They arrived at the large fountain that Ailia had encountered when she first came to Halmirion. Ailia sat down on its rim while Damion stood gazing up at the gleaming tiers of falling water and spouting sea monsters. For a long time neither of them spoke.
“I wish someone were staying at Melnemeron with me,” she said at last. “I am being sent there in a few days, they tell me.”
“Wu and Lira are staying there with you, aren’t they?”
“I meant a friend. I know you promised to help Jo with the army—”
Damion nodded. “He and I are the only people in this world who have ever seen real combat, Ailia.”
“But must Lori go as well?” she persisted. “She’s a Nemerei, she ought to be trained too.” And if she attends Melnemeron I won’t be tortured every minute with wondering what’s happening between the two of you, she added guiltily in her mind. She watched him closely for his reaction.
He smiled. “Lori wants to be a warrior, not a sorcerer, and Jo has decided to humor her for now. She wouldn’t be happy at Melnemeron.”
Neither will I—but my happiness counts for nothing, doesn’t it? She bit her tongue to keep from saying the petulant words out loud, and was immediately appalled at herself for thinking them. It was like accusing Damion of being thoughtless, when in truth he was one of the most caring people she had ever known. He could not know what his presence meant to her, for she dared not tell him even now.
“I’ve heard from the Temple of Orendyl, by the way—they have granted me a dispensation from my vows of peace, so I may go to war if need be.” His face was solemn as he looked about him. “The more I see of this world and its people, Ailia, the more I want to help save them. To fight for them—and for you.”
Was there a special emphasis on that last sentence—a slight warmth, even a tenderness in his tone? Did he mean he wanted to defend the Tryna Lia—or someone who was dear to him? She had so often deceived herself about Damion, imagining she heard more than he really said, trying to delve beneath the surface of his words for what she wished could be there. No: she was deluding herself. If he felt anything for her, surely he would have shown it by now—by staying at Melnemeron with her, for instance. His Nemerei potential would have given him the perfect excuse. She was afraid, suddenly, to look into his honest eyes, to not see what she so desperately wanted in their clear blue depths. She feared his pity even more than his indifference.
“Your Highness?” They both turned to see Lady Lira standing not far away in the gardens. Marima was with her. “It is time to robe for the royal audience.”
Without another word Ailia went to them, her eyes downcast, the hound and mimic dog following at her heels. Lira led her back toward the palace. Marima remained behind, eyeing Damion through her gauzy veil.
“Father Damion,” she said abruptly, “I must ask you something.”
He bowed. “Your Reverence?”
“What are your intentions regarding the Tryna Lia?”
“Intentions?” echoed Damion blankly. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”
“You seem—attached to her. We have all noticed it. We know you have been close friends in the past, but—you do not by any chance hope to wed her, do you?”
“Wed her?” Damion burst out, startled. “I’ve never—what on
earth put that into your mind?”
“Then you have no such intention? That is fortunate, for if you had I would be obliged to tell you to abandon it. It would not do for the Tryna Lia to marry like a common woman.”
Damion stared at her. Celibacy was not required of any of the priests of this world, and he was free to marry if he chose: had Marima imagined that he was courting the Tryna Lia herself? For the Elei the joining of two lives in love was no light matter, no surrender to passing fancy nor mere domestic contract. Nor was it solely for the begetting of children. They were a long-lived race inhabiting a small world, and could not afford to increase their population by very much. They were strictly monogamous therefore, remarrying only on the death of a spouse, and often not even then. This view had been adopted by most of the Merei who shared their world. Ailia, he knew, approved of it: she had always been something of a romantic. For her not to be allowed to marry seemed cruel. “Her mother married,” he said.
Marima nodded, her face inscrutable behind her veil. “That was in the prophecy, and expected. But the people have come to think of Ailia both as a mother figure and as a virgin goddess.”
“Isn’t that a paradox?”
“Yes—a divine paradox, which gives it great power. She is their mother because she is a virgin—because she has no children other than her people. Were she to wed, to love one mortal man exclusively, and—worse still—to have children of her own, it would forever alter the image she holds in the minds of the devout.”
“You haven’t—told her this?”
“Not yet. She is young still—by Elei reckoning, scarcely out of childhood. We would not broach such a subject to her until she came of age at fifty or so. But it would be cruel to encourage in her a desire for romance. We hope in time to reconcile her to the role that she must play.”
Damion felt some irritation at that. “I don’t suppose she has any say in the matter?” he asked coldly.